Last Dance Redux 2

::TWO::

“No, it’s just Adams. No, I DON’T have a fucking first name. I’ll take the cargo, but I don’t want to know you, and you sure as fuck don’t want to know me. Slip 18. You’re either there at oh three hundred or your deposit is mine…..Look, asshole, I don’t care who you say you are, or how important your damned cargo is. Don’t much care who the hell you talked to either, or what kind of fucking information you claim to have picked up about me. Be here on time, or find someone else to fly your sorry ass wherever it is you’re NOT telling me we’re flying to..”

I’m a cargo jockey. I don’t usually have to put up with actual people, but , on this run, that’s the cards I’m dealt. Don’t know what Dufresne was thinking. A three in the morning pickup on some god-forsaken rock out in the middle of nowhere. Four passengers and 230 pounds of cargo. Sight unseen. No names. I’m used to the phrase “no questions asked”. Sometimes it gets to be a bit much.

Get up, get myself a cup of coffee, sitting down up front again, in the pilot’s seat. Put my feet up and wait. I wasn’t always a cargo jockey. It sure as hell wasn’t what I trained for, or what I expected my life to become. I kind of figured I’d be dead by know, truth be told. I still wake up some days and wonder how the hell I lived this long. Maybe I was just smart and got out before it claimed me. Or was stupid and got out before it claimed me.

I was, hell, a lot of me still is, a fighter pilot. Military. The riskier the better, especially near the end. Used to make me sad some days, when I actually made it back in one piece. Kept pushing myself. Part of me desperate to go so far, that I just wouldn’t make it back one day. The rest of the crew, on the slip, adrenaline junkies, glad to have made it back. Eager to get out and do it again.

All I could think of after a while was that the targets we were hitting sure as fuck didn’t look like military targets to me. Sure, the intell was dolled up that way. But a house is a house, not a rogue operation, assassins nest, or terrorist base. You can only do so many of those before you start to hate yourself. Do a few more, and you start to hedge your bets. Take film of what you’re being made to kill. Copies of orders. Hide it as best you can. I still hated it, every time I brought my beautiful bird in, knowing what I’d had to do.

Came a time when I just couldn’t do it anymore. I had no problem with killing. I’ve been a soldier my whole life. Can’t imagine living any other way. This was different. The military isn’t the military anymore. It’s something else, something darker, since the Company really got into running things.

Somewhere along the line, it must have been pretty clear what I was doing. That my heart wasn’t in it any more. Probably would have just ghosted me too, if I hadn’t decided to play one of my cards. Anything happened to me, all those killings, all the political assassinations, that I had been ordered to commit, were going to be made very public. Don’t think I’d last that long, to be honest. I’d take the whole Company down with me, though. Every last one of those bastards would burn for it.

Sure, I’d most likely go to prison, just for having done the things I’ve done, ordered or not. I’m not exactly built for prison. I’m what, 130, tops? Even beat to hell like I am now, I’m still female. There’d be nothing left of me, nothing that mattered. Wouldn’t be Slam they’d send me to, either. It would be military prison. Death would be easier.

So I got out, got left alone. Sort of. The Company never really leaves you alone, and once it’s had it’s claws in you, it never lets go. Saw to it that I was dishonourably discharged. I can’t say I didn’t see it coming, but fuck, does it hurt. My family’s been military for hundreds of years, since the days of Old Earth. It’s the only thing I’ve ever known.

Lieutenant Colonel Jane Adams. Dishonourably discharged.

A black mark that was meant to cripple my ability to fly. Anywhere. Ever again. So I’m stuck to being a cargo jockey. If it’s illegal, I’ve done it. Funny thing is, all the illegal things I’ve done since leaving the military have felt more legitimate than what I did when I was still in. Out here, if I kill someone, there’s a damned good chance he needed killing. About the only thing that lets me sleep at night. When I can still sleep, that is. Nightmares are still pretty bad. The price I pay for being alive, after killing so many people that sure as hell didn’t deserve killing.

Oh two thirty. Do a final check on my beautiful girl before the contract shows up. Let the routine claim me. I know I don’t have to actually do anything, but old habits die hard for a reason, so I walk around her, making sure everything is where it’s supposed to be. The dock is silent, at this time of the morning. Outpost 17 is a haven for criminal activity. Criminals gave up on the notion of wee hours of the morning business here quite some time ago. Makes me wonder just what the hell kind of cargo I’ll be carrying, that, even here, such a quiet time was arranged to book transport.

next…